Monday, July 6, 2015

Castles

Not great, not terrible. Kind of dry at times. Great photos and illustrations, but seriously, no Edinburgh?? No Blarney?? Two amazing castles that deserved attention. No Windsor? No Stirling? Come on!

Additionally:

I decided to give this a little more attention - and also post pictures of my own favorite castles, because I love castles. I absolutely LOVE castles and have seen some awesome ones in Ireland, England, and Scotland. There are many more I want to see, but I have a good start.

This books really is informative, but it just read like a textbook sometimes and was very hard to continue - but it is by no means a long book. There are newer books available I'm sure - I hope - as we discover more and more during excavations.

I was lucky enough to see several castles in my European travels in 2009 and 2010. When Mom and I traveled to the UK, we saw Edinburgh, Stirling, and Windsor (England was a short, short trip and much of Windsor was actually closed to tourists while the Queen was knighting people that day). Then in 2010 we traveled to Ireland, where we saw Dublin, Bunratty, Malahide, and Blarney. All amazing in their own right, though I am partial to ruins like Blarney, not furnished castles like Malahide. All photograpghs were taken by me (or my mom, or in the case where we are pictured together, a helpful but unnamed fellow tourist) in 2009 and 2010 and all belong to me.

Here are a few gems that should have been included in this book:

Our first view off the bus on the Royal Mile, after having landed, dropped our stuff at our B&B (The Ben Doran, AWESOME!), our first morning in Edinburgh (2009)

Edinburgh (2009)

Edinburgh (2009)

Urquhart Castle (2009)

Urquhart Castle (2009)

Entering the grounds of Stirling - MY FAVORITE! (2009)

Stirling (2009)

Stirling (2009)

Holyrood Palace (Okay, so not really a castle, but still awesome) (2009)

Windsor (2009)

Windsor (2009)

Blarney (2010)

Blarney (2010)

Blarney lots of small passageways to look around in! (2010)

Bunratty (2010)

Bunratty (2010)

Dublin (2010)

Dublin - this is about all that remains of the castle above-ground unfortunately. We were able to see the parts that are still underground though too (2010)

Dublin - The original castle stairs are now below street level (2010)

Dublin - remains of a city wall, below street level (2010)

Malahide (2010)

Malahide - Mom and I (2010) - the nice man who took our photo was quite the amateur photog. He kept directing us and his wife kept apologizing (she's the one standing to the left). It was quite funny, and we got this great picture.